Summary
The poem opens by asking the Muse to tell of the man of many turns — polytropos — who wandered far after sacking the citadel of Troy, saw many cities and knew many minds, and could not save his companions, who destroyed themselves by eating the cattle of the Sun.
On Olympus, with Poseidon away among the Ethiopians, Zeus opens the divine council by complaining that mortals blame the gods for sufferings they bring on themselves, citing Aegisthus, who was warned and took Agamemnon's wife and life anyway. Athena turns the argument to Odysseus, held on Calypso's island, and secures agreement that he shall return.
Athena goes to Ithaca disguised as Mentes, a Taphian guest-friend. Telemachus receives her properly while the suitors feast in the hall. She advises him to call an assembly, to go to Pylos and Sparta for news of his father, and to consider how to kill the suitors if news comes that he is dead.
The bard Phemius sings of the disastrous homecomings of the Achaeans. Penelope comes down and asks him to stop; Telemachus publicly overrules his mother and sends her back to her rooms. He then announces an assembly for the following day.
Narrative function
Establishes the crisis before establishing the hero. Odysseus is spoken about for an entire book before he appears, which places the audience in the position of the household: waiting for a man who may be dead.
Greek concepts in this book
- polytropos
- 'Of many turns.' The poem's first characterisation of Odysseus, and deliberately double-edged: widely travelled, or devious. Translators have never agreed.
- nostos
- Homecoming, and the whole class of stories about returns from Troy. The poem is one nostos told against the background of all the others.
- atasthaliai
- Reckless acts. Zeus's word for what mortals do to themselves before blaming the gods; it recurs for the crew's eating of the cattle of the Sun.
Connections to other books
Book 11 · Book 24
Zeus's Aegisthus example is the poem's counter-model of homecoming; Agamemnon tells his side among the dead in 11 and again in 24.
Book 12
The proem's mention of the cattle of the Sun previews the crew's destruction, narrated in Book 12.
Book 21 · Book 22
Athena's suggestion that Telemachus consider killing the suitors is the first statement of the poem's ending.
Source notes
The proem occupies 1.1-10. The opening phrase — andra moi ennepe, Mousa, polytropon — is among the most securely transmitted lines in Greek literature. Zeus's speech on human responsibility (1.32-43) is the poem's own statement about divine causation and is frequently cited in discussions of Homeric theology.
Reading it responsibly
Opening with a divine assembly rather than with the hero has a specific effect: it frames the return as something already decided in principle and obstructed in practice. The poem is not asking whether Odysseus will get home. It is asking what condition he and his house will be in when he does.